"Retirees Now Frequently Base Their Retirement Decisions on the Portfolio Success Rates Found in Research Such as the Trinity Study.... This Is Not the Information They Need for Making Their Withdrawal Rate Decisions."

"Big Moves Out of Stocks Should Not Be Done at All. But Strategic Asset Allocation Can Be Done At Very Rare Times, Maybe Six Times in an Investor’s Lifetime, Three Times When the Market Is Stupidly High and Three Times When Stupidly Low."

"There Is An Extensive Literature About the Predictability of Long-Term Stock Returns. There Is an Extensive Literature About Short-Term Market Timing. My Question Is About Long-Term Market Timing. The Literature Seems Slim."

"For Years, the Investment Industry Has Tried to Scare Clients Into Staying Fully Invested in the Stock Market at All Times, No Matter How High Stocks Go. It's Hooey. They're Leaving Out More Than Half the Story."

"There Are Time-Periods Where Stocks Are a Terrible Addition to That Portfolio. Yet Inexplicably, We As Planners STILL tend to Suggest That It Is 'Risky' to Not Own Stocks When in Reality the Only Risk Is to Our Business."

"There Is a Growing Behavioral Economics Movement, But It So Far Has Had Limited Impact. Economists Are Not Fond of the Softness and Imprecision of Psychology. These Notions Are Considered Vaguely Unprofessional and Flaky."

"I Was Hooked on the Idea of [Passive] Index Indexing, But Something Inside Made Me Wonder "Too Good to Be True?" and "What's the Downside?" I Happened on to Your Site and Valuation-Informed Indexing Seems to Make Sense."

"Rob's Da Man! Never in the History of the Diehards Forum Has One Poster, Always Making Civil and Well Thought-Out Posts, Managed to Irritate So Many Without Anyone Being Able to Articulate a Good Reason As to Why."

"Rob Bennett: Some People Disagree With Him, and He Rubs a Lot of People the Wrong Way. But He Has Interesting Ideas About Valuation-Informed Indexing, and He Delves Into a Lot of What Makes a Successful Investing Strategy."

"The Return Predictor Is Based upon the Principle that Over the Long Term, Stock Market Prices Will Reflect the Ten-Years Earnings Growth of the Underlying Companies. Prices Return to a Common Growth Pattern."

"You Go About It in a Manner that is Catastrophically Unproductive by Adding Missionary Zeal that Inflates Your Importance and Demeans Others. The Whole Idea That There is a New School of Safe Withdrawal Rates Reeks of Personal Aggrandizement."

“What Warren Buffett Did Was Essentially Quite Close to What Rob Bennett Has Written. Buffett Has in Fact Been Cleverly Incorporating Long-Term Market Timing Based on Valuation of the Market in His Allocation of Money to Stocks.”

"You've Got to Say One Thing for Rob. He Has NEVER Lowered Himself to Ad Hominen Attacks -- Subliminal or Otherwise -- on Any Other Person on This Board. Not Once. Ever. At Least Give Him Credit for That."

"Mr. Bennett, You Are Spot on About Integrating Some Type of Valuation Filter to One's Stock Allocation. Astute Investors Have Incorporated Some Type of 'Valuation Timing' Into Their Investment Decisions Since the Beginning of Time."

"There Is Nothing More Doubtful of Success Than a New System. The Initiator Has the Enmity of All Who Profit By Preservation of the Old Institution and Merely Lukewarm Defenders in Those Who Gain By the New One."

"Difficult Subjects Can Be Explained to the Most Slow-Witted Man If He Has Not Formed Any Idea of Them. But the Simplest Thing Cannot Be Made Clear to the Most Intelligent Man If He Believes He Knows Already What Is Laid Before Him."

"I Certainly Have Seen the Academic Profession Squelching Unfashionable ideas and Have Often Been on the Wrong Side of It. Kuhn Shows How Most Pathbreaking Scientific Ideas Are Rejected at First, Usually for Decades.”

"Rob Bennett Was an Early Pioneer in 3rd Generation Modeling by Advocating (Through Various Online Forums) that Withdrawal Rates Must Be Adjusted for Market Valuations Consistent with Research by Campbell and Shiller."

"Rob Is an Enigma in the Personal Finance World. He Has Interesting Theories on Investing Based on Market Valuations. But He Weaves a Tale Which Makes the Stories of Alexander Litvinenko & Gareth Williams Seem Tame by Comparison."

"I Have Read Everything I Can About Valuation-Informed Indexing. Buy-and-Hold Is Extremely Problematic. I Respect the Passion, Hard Work and Research That You Have Put Into This Very Important Issue. Your Work Has Huge Value."

"The Amount of Return You Can Expect From a Diversified Equity Portfolio Is Inversely Correlated to the Market Valuation at the Start of the Holding Period. It Is One of the Most Robust Statistical Relationships in Modern Finance."

"I've Had Similar Experiences. I Know of Two Young Professors Who Wanted to Do Research on Fundamental Index and Reported to Me That Their Colleagues Advised Them That This Line of Research Could Derail Their Career Prospects."

"As with Drug Studies Funded by Drug Companies, It Would Be Churlish to Suppose that the Chicago School of Business Was in the Bag. But It Would Also Be Idealistic to Assume That There Was No Funding Bias at All."

"This Sort of Intimidation Is Not Acceptable. The Cigarette and Pharmaceutical Industries Found Research Supporting Their Products By Funding It. But That Was Big Money Supporting Outcomes, Not Dissuading Others."

"The Situation [Referring to the Intimidation Tactics Used to Silence Academic Researcher Wade Pfau's Reporting of the Dangers of Buy-and-Hold Investing Strategies] Seems Well Below Any Professional and Academic Acceptable Standards."

"It Is Obvious that Rob, in Attempting to Identify New Safe Withdrawal Rate Strategies...Is Goring Your Ox. If Rob Improves on [the] Safe Withdrawal Rate Methodology, the Implication Is Clear: You Are All, Metaphorically, Out of Business."

"Naturally, I Am Finding That Valuation-Informed Indexing Can Allow You to Reach a Wealth Target With a Lower Saving Rate and to Use a Higher Withdrawal Rate in Retirement Than You Could With a Fixed Allocation."

"A Careful Examination of Past Returns Can Establish Some Probabilities About the Prospective Parameters of Return, Offering Intelligent Investors a Basis for Rational Expectations About Future Returns."

"How Can It Be That One-Year Returns Are So Apparantly Random and Yet Ten-Year Returns Are Mostly Forecastable? In Looking at One-Year Returns, One Sees a Lot of Noise. But Over Longer Time Intervals the Noise Effectively Averages Out and Is Less Important."

"The Notion That Rich Valuations Will Not Be Followed By Sub-Par Long-Term Returns Is a Speculative Idea That Runs Counter to All Historical Evidence. It Is an Iron Law of Finance That Valuations Drive Long-Term Returns."

"It's January and the Temperature Is Below Freezing. If You Asked Me Whether It Will be Warmer or Cooler Next Tuesday, I Would Be Unable to Say. However, If You Asked Me What Temperature to Expect on April 9, I Could Predict "Warmer Than Today" and Almost Surely Be Right."

"If the Response Is "Who Knew?", It Won't Be Much Comfort for Retirees in the Employment Line at Wal-Mart. This is Especially True Since a Rational Understanding of History and the Drivers of Longer-Term Stock Returns Can Help Retirees To Avoid That Surprise."

"New of the Demise of the Random Walk Has Only Very Slowly Spread, In Part Because Its Overthrow Came as a Shock. If the Random Walk Hypothesis Were Correct, the Most Likely Return Would Be the Historic Average Return. The Evidence, However, Is Strongly Against This."

"I Don't Care If You Do or Don't Believe That the Market Will Behave Similarly in the Future As It Has in the Past. Either Way, This [The Stock-Return Predictor] Is an Excellent Way to Understand What the Market Has Done In the Past."

"It Really Is a Shame and Indefensible That So Many Feel the Need to Jump Into It With No Interest of Posting on the Topic But Just to Disrupt. Are You That Insecure? Some on the Forum Have an Interest in This Topic. If You Don't, Stay Out!"

"Irrational Behavior Does Follow Patterns. But How Many Experts in Behavioral Finance Believe That Such Knowledge Can Be Used to Predict Markets? Basically, None. Your Model Cannot Attain the Level of Predictive Value You Claim."

"The Safe Withdrawal Rate Studies Are Based on History. This [The Retirement Risk Evaluator] Shows, Based on the Same History, What the Probabilities Are for the Future at Various Starting Points. If the First Has Value, Then Surely This Does Too."

"There Are Hundreds of People Who Contributed to This. This Calculator [The Stock-Return Predictor] Demonstrates in a Compelling Way the Power of This New Internet Discussion-Board Communications Medium."

"A P/E10 of'26' Is Bad. Now Look at the 30-Year Return Predicted by the Calculator -- 5.4 Percent Real. That's Not Bad. There Are All Sorts of Strategic Implications That Follow From Understanding That Stocks Provide Different Sorts of Returns Over Different Sorts of Time-Periods."

"I Would Never Invest in Anything Without Having Any Idea What the Expected Return Is. For Instance, I Would Not Walk Into a Bank And Say "I'll Take One Certificate of Deposit, Please" WIthout Asking What Rate They Are Offering."

"I've Seen Things Said on Investing Boards That I Have Never Heard Said in Discussions of Any Non-Investing Topic. The Question of Whether Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns Is a Topic That Causes People More Emotional Angst Than Does Abortion or Impeachment Proceedings or the War in Iraq."

"It's Not Possible For Those Who Have Come to Believe That Stocks Are Always Best to Accept that Valuations Matter. The Two Beliefs Are Mutually Exclusive. If Valuations Matter, There Is Obviously Some Valuation Level At Which Stocks Are Not Best. The Two Paradigms Cannot Be Reconciled."

"Dear Rob -- I Just Became Aware of Your Past Research in September. Since Then, I've Read Archives From Many Discussion Boards and Websites, and I Always Find Your Writing to Be Very Interesting and Intriguing."

"I Think Rob Bennett Did Provide An Important Contribution in Terms of Describing a Way for P/E10 to Guide Asset Allocation for Long-Term Conservative Investors. I Also Think He Was Right on the Issue of Safe Withdrawal Rates."

"Because the Precise Timing of This Mean Reversion Is Not Known in Advance, Expecting the Result to Happen in the Short-Term Will Not Be Possible. But Long-Term Investors Who Can Be Patient Can Wait for This Mean Reversion and Will Eventually Come Out Ahead."

"Your Work Is at Odds with the Ethos of the Board -- Here the Theme is John Bogle's Philosophy, Which Eschews Market Timing. This Board Came Into Existence to ESCAPE One Individual, the Very Individual With Whom You Have Openly Aligned Yourself."

"Why Is It Such an Odious Violation of the Tenets of Bogleheadism to Explore Whether Someone Who Has Enough Patience Might Be Able to Benefit from the Transitory Nature of Speculative Returns (the Idea That the P/E Ratio Eventually Ends Up Where It Started)?"

"Let Me Explain Why I Posted About This Here. Valuation-Informed Indexing Has Had Critics for Years. But Until Norbert Did It In 2008, Nobody Seemed to Have Provided a Serious Investigation of It. I Couldn't Understand Why. That Bothered Me."

"If You Really Don't Like Market Timing in Any and All Forms, You May Not See Any Point in an Empirical Investigation. You View Me as One of a Long Line of Hucksters Trying to Sell You Some Snake Oil. I Don't Want to Be Such a Person."

"Having a Completely Ineleastic Demand for Equities Is a Bit Bonkers. No One Acts That Way with Life's Other Important Commodities. Campbell Advocates a Linear Valuations-Based Strategy so That You Wouldn't Be Making Big Changes. This Would Be Like Rebalancing But More Flexible."

"The Whole Idea of Valuation-Informed Indexing Belongs to You. Do You Mind if I call the Paper 'Valuation-Informed Indexing'? I Would Give You Credit. I Have Been Toying With the Idea of Sending the Paper to the Journal of Finance, Which Is the Most Prestigious Journal in Academic Finance."

"I Definitely Need to Cite You as the Founder of Valuation-Informed Indexing, As I Have Not Found Anyone Else Who Can Lay Claim to That. Shiller Pointed Out the Predictive Power of P/E10 But Never Discussed How to Incorporate It Into Asset Allocation, As Far As I Know."

"I Tested a Wide Variety of Assumptions About Asset Allocation, Valuation-Based Decision Rules, Whether the Period Is 10, 20, 30 or 40 Years, and Lump-Sum vs. Dollar-Cost Averaging To Show That the Results Are Quite Robust to Changes In Any of These Assumptions."

"I Wrote Up the Programs to Test Your Valuation-Informed Indexing Strategies Against Buy-and-Hold and I Am Quite Excited. You Say in the RobCast That VII Should Beat Buy-and-Hold About 90 Percent of the Time. I Am Getting Results That Support This."

"Never Underestimate the Power of a Dominant Academic Idea to Choke Off Competing Ideas, and Never Underestimate the Unwillingness of Academics to Change Their Views in the Face of Evidence. They Have Decades of Their Research and Academic Standing to Defend."

"Since They Did Not Diagnose the Disease, There Is Little Popular Confidence That They Know the Cure. What If Economics Is, Actually, At the Same Level as Medicine Was When Doctors Still Believed in the Application of Leeches?"

"I Love the Humans Dearly (the Title of the Book I Am Writing Is Investing for Humans: How to Get What Works on Paper to Work in Real Life) But They Can Be a Trial at Times. Hey! Helping the Humans Learn What It Takes to Invest Effectively Is Not All That Different From Being Married!

"Wow, I Did Not Realize You Had Achieved This Much Success and Had Many Devoted Believers/Followers. That’s Great, Then Ignore the Opposition. It Is Great to Have Opposition: That Means You Are Doing Something Right."

"I Do NOT Believe I Know It All. I Believe That Shiller Discovered Something Very Important and It Appalls Me That More People Are Not Exploring the Implications of His Findings. My Aim Is To Launch a National Debate."

"I LOVE Everything About Buy-and-Hold Other Than the Failure to Encourage Investors to Take Price Into Consideration When Setting Their Stock Allocations. That's a Mistake That Was Made Because Shiller’s Research Was Not Available at the Time The Strategy Was Being Developed."

"Valuation-Informed Indexing Sounds Like a Real Thing. If It Is and I Can Thoroughly Understand It, Then It Will End Up In My Classrooms and in My Students' Minds (Of Course, With References to You and Wade)."

"As a Fan of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I Know That Progress Can Be Frustratingly Slow and What Is Typically Needed Is Either a Crisis or the Ascent of a New Generation of Scientists Who Did Not Build Their Careers on the Old Models and Theories."

"Rob Gets Himself So Worked Up Over What Someone Else Is Doing With Their Own Money and Not Bothering Rob in the Least. As Long As They Aren't Knocking on Your Basement Door, What Do You Care? They Are Happy and Content. Leave Well Enough Alone and Focus on Your Own Account."

"I've Been on Forum Since the BBS Days and I Think Rob is Special. He Could Be an Internet Meme If He Put Some Effort Into It. Someday, He Will Realize That the Only Thing He's Good At Is Being an Epic Loser. He Just Needs to Embrace That Idea and Run With It. Watch Out, LOLCats, Here Comes Pathetic Guy!"

"You Guys [the Greaney Goons] Are the Same Jokers Who Have Done This Before, Sparring with Rob Over Nonsensical Issues On This Site and Others, Leveling Personal Attacks, and You Don't Even Use Real Names! Rob Is Entitled to His Opinion, But the Fact That You Challenge Every Jot and Tittle of What He Says Makes It Clear You Have An Unholy Agenda. Please Take It Elsehwere."

"Rob, Take This As Friendly Advice. You're a Smart and Articulate Guy and You Could Be Making Valuable Contributions to This Discussion. I've Dealt with the Mentally Ill Before and I've Found That They Sometimes Can Be Reasonable If Gently Redirected."

"I’m a Numbers Guy. And I Believe I Understand Rob’s Thesis, that Future Returns, Over the Next Decade, Have a Tight Inverse Correlation to the PE10 for the Starting Point. Remember, Correlation Doesn’t Need to be 100%, Only That There’s a Bell Curve of Potential Outcomes that Shift Meaningfully Based on the Input."

"I Have had Academic Researchers Tell Me That They Dream of the Day When They Will be Able to do Honest Research Once Again. I Have had Investment Advisors Tell me That They Dream of the Day When They Will be Able to Give Honest Investing Advice Again."

"Let’s Call a Spade a Spade, Shall We? Wade Pfau Stole Your Research and Put His Name on it, Throwing You Just a Tiny Crumb of Acknowledgement to Ward Off a Lawsuit. He’s Profiting Handsomely By His Theft, Leading a Charmed Life, Widely Published, Widely Respected. While Rob Bennett Continues to Toil in Total Obscurity. It’s So Incredibly Unfair, I Think If It Happened to Me, It Could Actually Drive Me Insane."

The ad will only appear for a short time at Cassy’s site. But I expect to run it at other places in coming days.

Speak out against the Ban on Honest Posting on Safe Withdrawal Rates and Other Critically Important Investment-Related Topics!

Oh, there’s one other thing I thought I should mention for the benefit of the Lindauer/Greaney “defenders.” That gun Cassy is holding in the photo at the top? Her nickname for it is “The Goon Terminator.” Yowsa!

I would have said that it was kind of you to take time out of your day to share your thoughts with us even if you hadn’t let us know that you feel that way, DW. But I think it would be fair to say that those words serve to highlight the point.

I've posted my third Google Knol. This one is entitled Rob Bennett.
Juicy Excerpt: Rob Bennett graduated from Temple University, in Philadelphia. He majored in Political Science. He holds a law degree from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America, and a Masters in the Law of Taxation from George Washington University School of Law.
Rob covered the IRS and Capitol Hill beats for The Daily Tax Report, a newsletter published by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.,…

Friday's blog entry set forth the text of an e-mail that I received from Edwin at the Finantage blog. Set forth below is the text of my reply e-mail.
Edwin:
Thanks for your note. Reading it cheered my morning!
I am excited to hear about your plans. I think you are handling this in a positive and constructive and life-affirming way.
I would like to post the words of your e-mail at my blog. I like to expose my readers to the words of smart and good people who offer a different take…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob, you have only to look at your father and to me for two immediate counterexamples that totally disprove your claim.
My father experienced the Great Depression (caused by a widespread belief in the core Buy-and-Hold “idea” that consideration of price is not necessary when buying stocks that developed during the 1920) not as an investor but as a child. It left a mark.
He…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to a discussion of a blog entry at this site:
hopefully for your sake you have more of a plan than praying.
God helps those who help themselves, What. So I certainly need to work it myself in addition to saying my prayers.
But it is in God’s hands, not mine. If God doesn’t mean for this to happen, it’s not going to happen, no matter how hard I work it.
I had a discussion about this with my mother shortly before…

Here's the text of a comment that I put to the Goon Central board the other day:
I'll offer a more serious response to the narcissism charge.Every advance is made by one of the humans. I am one of the humans. I happened to be the one primarily responsible for this particular advance.There are thousands of advances that become possible with the shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing.
All the people who are today engaging in behavior that will down the road cause them…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a discussion thread at this blog:
Rob,
Take a look at this:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-internet-harassment-laws.htm
It looks like this describes what you are doing.
Here’s an article where I report on the Campaign of Terror of which Wade and I and many other good people have been victims:
http://www.passionsaving.com/internet-harassment.html
I have contacted my congressman, Sparky. I have contacted…

The Digerati Life blog recently ran a blog entry examining the unconventional money saving tips explored in my recent interview with ABC News Now. It's called Money Saving Advice from an Expert Money Saver.
Juicy Excerpt: I like Rob's fresh views and tips on the subject of saving money.... The “magic” here is that by using this rule, you’ll figure out what it takes to fund something for life. Once you’ve saved up for something in this manner, it can be quite liberating to realize…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Let’s play Jeopardy.
Answer: the peer-reviewed research of the past 33 years needs to be discussed in every THREAD in which Buy-and-Hold “ideas” are advanced.
Question: Why has Rob Bennett been banned from every major finance board?
That's a super comment, X. You cut through a lot of b.s. and got straight to the heart of things with that comment. Good for you.
I understand…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
Having a great idea does not mean money just shows up on your doorstep. You have offered nothing that anyone is willing to pay any money for.
The way that it works is that a determination is made as to how much money I would have made from the idea had it not been for the death threats and the board bannings and the tens of thousands of acts of defamation and the threats to get academic…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that a community member named "Tron" recently put to another blog entry at this site:
Well based on your response I can’t quite tell if you are being serious or doing a Colbert type act. In any event I’ll bite. Here are a few observations and questions I have.
You have an impressive ability to write volumes of repetitive nothingness.
Your entire site feels as though I am reading the text version of an infomercial to the point I am astounded…

When Tim Russert died recently, lots of people came forward to tell us what made him so special.
He asked tough questions in a polite way.
That's pretty much it. But that's a lot.
When someone asks tough questions in a polite way, we learn stuff. That makes us a better people. Tim Russert made us a better people. You cannot ask much more of a guy than that, can you?
We need a Tim Russert in Investoworld. We need that really, really, really, really badly.
My background is in…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board:
it's just that not enough folks have yet been introduced to your insanity profound insights in order to create a tipping point which will make the Hocomania Wave unstoppable!
Yes, it's a Tipping Point thing.
EVERYONE (including you, Yip!) knows that GRQ is garbage. That's close to universal.
Virtually no one knew that Buy-and-Hold was GRQ garbage in 1974, when A Random Walk Down Wall…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I posted recently to another blog entry at this site:
Who are these goons that are standing in your way? How are they standing in your way?
One of you Goons put up a reference to “The Law of Thermodynamics” or some such thing the other day. The idea was that this law was a core principle of physics, something that people working in the physics field don’t give up lightly. It is a foundation stone of the science. There are hundreds of…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
That sounds reasonable. Did the same person also write:
Yes, the same person wrote both things.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about these things and I have strongly held views. But I am a flawed human. I get things wrong from time to time. There are millions of good and smart people who do not agree with me. Everyone who hears my words needs to know that. I DO believe what I say. I AM…

The author of the Pop Economics blog let me have a sneak preview of the Guest Blog Entry that he posted yesterday a few hours before he put it up. Set forth below is the text of the e-mail I sent to him to let him know my take.
Pop:
I love it! It's 100 percent perfect. I've been waiting for someone to do something like this for eight years now. You are our new leader!
My only question is -- Is there any chance that you could give me the JPEG file for that image? I have no particular…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
It is funny what you call an endorsement. Many of those comments ate not very positive.
I included some Goon comments so that people can see what we are up against.
And I included some comments by skeptical Normals. Because there are lots of good and smart people who possess a sincere skepticism and their views obviously need to be heard.
But the vast majority of the comments are…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that one of the Goons recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
The difference is that Todd states his opinions and they are just that. The rest of us have opinions as well. With you, there is a strong agenda and you want to be the center of attention, have everyone agree with you and then to be considered some kind of financial expert to the level of someone like Bill, Jack, etc. the fact remains that you have been proven wrong time and…

Here's a link to an interesting thread at the FinCon Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/362252247186456/permalink/367187723359575/
Michael Germanovsky asked: "Is it okay for a finance blogger that caught a news reporter on a wrong factual statement to call out the mistake?" He noted that one reported warned him of a risk of being blacklisted for doing such a thing.
Here's my comment:
I think it is fine to try to correct the error in private, so long as that gets the error…

I've put up my first BlogAds ad at the Cassy Fiano blog. It's entitled Most Hated Blogger!.
Juicy Excerpt: Banned at Motley Fool! Banned at Morningstar! Banned at Bogleheads!
Boy, that guy is banned at lots of places. I wonder why.
The ad will only appear for a short time at Cassy's site. But I expect to run it at other places in coming days.
Speak out against the Ban on Honest Posting on Safe Withdrawal Rates and Other Critically Important Investment-Related…

Reading a book is a learning experience. Sitting around shooting the breeze is not.
True?
Not true.
Often we read books not to learn but to comfort ourselves that things we already believe are in fact so. In those cases, we read books not for the insights they offer, but for the emotional support they offer. In those cases, we are getting from books what we tend to think we get from talking things over with friends.
It works the other way around too. Sometimes talking things over…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
Why would anyone pay for the idea when all the information is available for free from your website?
There are thousands of web sites that promote Buy-and-Hold that make plenty of money, Evidence. Buy-and-Hold is not a new idea. It continues to make money because people want to see the idea explored from lots of different angles.
We are now in the process of moving from Buy-and-Hold to…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the Suckers Buy It! forum:
The purpose of this thread-starter is to offer some ideas on how blog and site owners can obtain big-name endorsements for their work. The obvious benefit of doing so is that big-name endorsements give you the credibility you need to persuade customers to buy your products and services. They can also help you obtain citations in big-name media outlets, which can generate traffic gains.
I have a…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
What they take issue with is the way you seek to take over every discussion and make it about yourself and your views.
I don’t seek to take over any discussions, Sensible.
It just happens.
The reason why it happens is that the things I say make so much sense to most people and most people have never before heard anybody say these things. So they naturally are interested and want to…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob, serious question here: do you think you’re obsessing about this topic? I agree with the idea that you believe in: buy and hold isn’t the best way to invest. Seriously, though, you must’ve thought to yourself, at least a few times…..that “perhaps I could broaden the range of topics beyond the one idea I talk about daily….that buy and hold is not the best way to…

I posted a plea yesterday at the Frugal Dad blog asking that he permit me to write a series of guest blogs explaining the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy to his readers.
Juicy Excerpt: Please (I am begging) give the idea a little bit of thought. You are positioned to make an awful big difference in the lives of millions of middle-class investors. I sincerely believe that, if we could get the word out on these findings (which have been endorsed by a good number of big-name experts as…

I mentioned on a thread at the Early Retirement Extreme forum that J.D. Roth at the Get Rich Quickly blog once sent an e-mail to all readers of his forum asking that they not respond to my posts. A community member named "Alex" said: "Rob -- I have to ask...What do you say that's so controversial?"
Good question!
The response that I provided over there is set forth below:
You're going to be sorry you asked, Alex! I want to answer your question. But I don't want to hijack the thread. If…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob,
For what it’s worth, and obviously not on the scale of what you have accomplished and achieved, but on the all-things-money blog I have frequented for the last couple of years, and debated against common stock market mantras, there have been several calls for me to be banned or my comments ‘moderated’ simply because I rally against what’s popular and the feel-good…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob, you seem to be alone in this VII crusade. Haven’t you ever considered that you might be wrong about this?I have considered whether I might be wrong and looked for evidence to support that view every day of the past 12 years of my life, Sensible.I am not alone.
My work is rooted in the research of Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller. Shiller was awarded the Nobel prize in…

Set forth below is the text of a comment advanced by one of the Greaney Goons to a blog entry at this site (I think it would be fair to say that the comment was intended as an exercise in sarcasm -- he was describing his view of how Rob Bennett approaches the various issues that have come up during the first 11 years of our investing discussions):
I never lose an argument. Because I am always right. You could be always right too, except of course when you argue with me. Just follow these…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board:
for a smart guy, you sure are poor.
Money isn't my god, Dab.I like money. I have hopes of making many millions of dollars as we transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. Full truth be told, I have hopes of making hundreds of millions. That's serious money for a boy who got his start at old St. Timothy's in Northeast, Philadelphia.But money has never been the driver for me. If…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I put to the blog in response to a comment by one of the Greaney Goons that "there is no 'we," just 'you.'"
Everyone in this field faces an important question today, Trebor.
We are the first generation of investors who had available to them the research needed to turn stock investing into a high-return, virtually risk-free endeavor. No group of investors who came before us was so blessed. We can all live far richer lives than we ever dreamed…

Set forth below are the texts of three comments that I recently posted to the Goon Central board:
Not true, since most of what you have you inherited.
>
My father and mother worked very hard for a long number of years for the money I inherited from them, GW. My mother had to leave school after eighth grade to work in a factory so that her family had enough to eat in the Depression. They lived in the row-house they bought (mostly with checks he sent back to her while he was in…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
How will you be rich? You already told us that our significant net worth’s are all “cotton-candy nothingness” and that it will go away in the next crash. If your fantasy is correct, how will you collect money from anyone if they don’t have anything left?
It is your goonishness that is causing all the problems you have understanding what the research says, Anonymous. You exaggerate…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a discussion thread at this blog:
Did you come across as the expert you purported to be?
I’ll answer this one separately.
I don’t think that there can be such a thing as an investment “expert” today, Banned. We only started doing academic research on investing questions in a systematic way in the 1960s. So we are talking about a field with a history of about 50 years. We are still in the Pioneer days, when we are…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the blog at this site:
I think millions would disagree with your level of knowledge versus those you have listed.
Millions would disagree with what I say about my level of knowledge TODAY, Pink. We agree re that one.
How about tomorrow? What happens tomorrow matters.
Bogle does not believe that he can respond effectively to my questions about Buy-and-Hold, Pink. We know that beyond any reasonable doubt.
I announced…

Please don’t come to this site looking for advice on sophisticated investing transactions. I’ve got my hands full changing how the world thinks about the basics!
In all seriousness, I do not study the sophisticated stuff. If there were more hours in the day, I would have a go at it. The basics matter to more people and I happened to discover that there are serious weaknesses in the basic investing advice being offered by most of the “experts” in this field. So that’s where I direct…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob, grand conspiracy theories are an indicator of mental illness, nothing more.
I pointed out the errors in the Old School SWR studies in a post dated May 13, 2002, Anonymous.
Today’s date is April 21, 2014.
Not one of the studies has yet been corrected.
That tells the tale.
I don’t call it a “grand conspiracy.” I think it would be reasonable to call it a “conspiracy…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted at another blog entry at this site:
From today’s post by you on this exact topic, which you agree can’t be proven one way or the other:
I am telling you what I believe, Anonymous. I stand by those words. If I said anything different, I would be telling you a lie.
I am not able to imagine any circumstance in which the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies would not cause an economic crisis. Once you tell people that…

Edwin Ivanauskas, owner of the Finantage blog, wrote me an e-mail on May 11 detailing his plans for writing a series of articles re my criticisms of the Buy-and-Hold investing strategy and his reactions (both positive and negative) to those criticisms. Set forth below are his words. I will post the text of my response in Monday's blog.
Last week we had a brief back and forth on your guest post at popeconomics.com. I promised to write a lengthy response in my own site.
I wanted to…

The Financial Odyssey blog has posted its Interview with Rob Bennett, from A Rich Life.
Juicy Excerpt #1: You need to become friends with the big bloggers. Then they promote you and that’s how you move up. I feel great respect and affection for most of the big money bloggers. But I am not able to endorse Buy-and-Hold! I bill myself as the world’s leading critic of this investing strategy. That has unfortunately caused strained relations between me and a number of the big bloggers in this…

I take dips into the Post Archives of The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate from time to time, just to see. It can be a weird experience. I’ve learned a lot during the past six years. Going through the archives often puts me face to face with an earlier version of me. Sometimes I am impressed. Sometimes not so much.
One time I came across a thread in which people were hitting me with a stick, demanding that I tell them what stock allocation I recommended given that I didn’t think that…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
So an old fat white male with an inheritance is claiming persecution.
I am claiming that I have the right to post honestly re SWRs and scores of other critically important investment-related topics at any discussion board or blog on the internet at which I desire to do so.
And that my good friend Jack Bogle possesses that same right.
And my good friend Bill Bernstein too.
And my…

The Lindauer/Greaney Goons took their Smear Campaign to a thread put up last week at the Financial Samurai blog entitled "The Dark Side of Early Retirement."
I objected with these words (Post #47):
"Of course I have never spammed your site or any other site one time in my entire life, Sam.
"My “reputation” is the result of the fact that I am the person who discovered the analytical errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies back in May 2002. The former owner of the Early…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that one of the Greaney Goons put to another blog entry at this site:
Rob,
Here are just a few reason why your website is not successful:
You can’t back up your statements with facts (linking to your own comments are not facts)
When faced with facts that are documented by others that you do not agree with, you ignore them or delete the posts.
Your communication is often abrasive and your behavior is horrible.
You make silly unfounded…

Rob Bennett's A Rich Life blog aims to put the "personal" back into "personal finance" -- he focuses on the role played by emotion in saving and investing decisions. Rob developed the Passion Saving approach to money management; Passion Savers save not to finance their old-age retirements but to enjoy more freedom and opportunity in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s -- because they pursue saving goals over which they feel a more intense personal concern, they are more motivated to save effectively.…

Set forth below is the response that I wrote to a question put to me at my Beyond Buy-and-Hold column by Kathryn C at the Kathryn's Conversations blog:
Rob, do you mean “middle class” or just the average investor? I think you mean the average investor, not middle class. (we’re talking about how sophisticated an investor is here right, not if they are middle or upper class?)
Thanks much for stopping by, Kathyrn.
I understand your question. I use that “middle-class” phrase all…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a blog entry at this site:
You haven’t suffered $500 million worth of damages.
I’ve suffered far more than $500 million in losses as a result of the Campaign of Terror, Evidence.
The research that I did with Wade is Nobel Prize-level work. It shows millions of middle-class investors how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent and how to retire five to ten years sooner than they ever imagined possible…

My old friend John Greaney, owner of the RetireEarlyHomePage.com web site, has finally (I only had to remind you about 10 times, you bad boy!) gotten around to writing a review of my book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work.
I hope you won't consider it bragging if I mention that Greaney kicks off his review by observing that "Mr. Bennett evidences an unusual skill." That's a kind thing to say. But we go back a long ways, fella. So what's with this "Mr.…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
It worked for me.
It worked for my father, who has since passed on.
If I am correct in what I have read from you (and I literally BEG you to correct me if I am in error) it worked for YOUR father, too Rob!
So that’s three independent proofs that your nutty claim is wrong, from right off the top of my head, and of course I only needed one to do the job, anyway. End of argument.
If you…

I once was afraid that I was losing my hair.
I once was afraid that I would not be able to find another job that I liked as much as the one that I lost in the recession of the early 1990s.
I once was afraid that my grades wouldn't be good enough to get me into law school.
I once was afraid to call up a girl and ask for a date.
I once was afraid to hand in my resignation from a high-paying job to become a freelance writer.
I once was afraid that disco was never going to fade in…

The fellow who writes the My Life ROI blog "tagged" me the other day (this is my first time, so I'm a little nervous). These are the rules that I need to follow in responding to the tag:
"7 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” Meme Rules
1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve…

Jennifer at the Live Richly blog offered some fine comments re The Troubles in a recent post of hers titled Will You Retire on Your Stocks?
Juicy Excerpt #1: I started reading some guest posts by Rob Bennett of Passion Saving, and found out that his stance on buying when stocks are cheap and not when they are expensive is a controversial one. To me, this just seems like common sense, but apparently many advocates of buy-and-hold won’t even let Rob give his point of view.
Juicy Excerpt…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted at another blog entry at this site:
No one has to do a thing to please you. We can’t help it if you are too stupid to understand things. We have significant data and facts supporting a buy, hold and rebalance strategy and don’t need some market timing scheme. We are big boys and girls and can make our own judgements and have plenty of information to make up our own minds. You need to take responsibility for ourself and…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recent put to a discussion thread at this blog:
I agree in full with the first two points you make here and in part with the third, Sparky.
I am 100 percent confident that many of the recipients of my e-mails find the e-mail campaign an odd way of spreading the word. How can I be so sure? I find it an odd way of proceeding MYSELF. If the person sending the e-mails finds it an odd way of proceeding, how could at least a significant…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
There IS no such such Ban, as you well know. The only applicable ban is the one regarding a single mentally ill persistent troll, for his rotten BEHAVIOR, not for his bizarre beliefs. Shiller can post, Easterling can post, etc.
Any of a host of perma-bears, timers, wave-speculators, kooks, cranks, swindlers, and nuts can post on pretty much any board out there. In fact, right up until his…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Admit it, this all about you seeking some sort of glory and acclaim and not at all about errors in withdrawal rate studies or investing strategies.
I expect to be one of the richest people in the United States when this is over, Trebor. I also expect to be one of the most applauded. I have taken Buy-and-Hold and corrected the one big mistake in it to make it a workable strategy in the real…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
You give no real consideration to anything that doesn’t fit your script.
That’s not an accident.
My script is the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, Anonymous.
I believe that it is better to follow the research than to follow your emotions. I see the benefit of following research as being that research is objective while emotions are subjective.
I don’t…

My long-delayed Guest Blog Entry at Pop Economics has finally gone live. No -- wait. "Live" doesn't say it. It's positively -- Psychedelic!
Take a look and tell me that's not a fair thing to say!
Juicy Excerpt: For those of you unfamiliar with Rob, he’s a regular on pretty much every personal finance blog that mentions investing and hasn’t banned him....Iit’s been done in such an odd way (blog comments that are longer than articles, a conspiratorial tone, oddly capitalized words as…

ISet forth below is the text of a post that I put to the SiteSell (a web hosting company) forum, followed by the response of SiteSell Owner Ken Evoy:
I believe that the path forward is to move away from the idea that there is one right way to build a successful site and to position SBI as a company that helps one-person shops build successful sites in a variety of ways.My site never fit the SBI model. I write about personal finance. That's a huge topic with a huge amount of competition,…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that a poster named "Wab" (he used to post with me at the Early Retirement Forum and is now one of the Greaney Goons) recently put to another blog entry at this site:
Why haven’t you responded to the many questions that I have put forward that are each at least 500 times more important than the matter you keep bringing up?
Because I’ve dealt with the mentally ill before, and I’ve found that they can sometimes be reasonable if gently…

The Realty Mogul site recently interviewed me re Valuation-Informed Indexing and how it applies to real estate investing. The article is here.
Juicy Excerpt: “Going along with conventional advice, I believe people should only invest in things they understand well. Real estate can be very appealing, but I recommend people chose the asset class they are going to focus on and study that to death as opposed to spreading yourself out thin and having a little bit of everything. I have not…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the discussion of a blog entry posted at this site:
Rob,
Even us unicorns know that people won’t tell you to your face that you are an ass. People, on the whole, will be polite in face to face discussions. There is no evidence of a vast conspiracy. You have been banned from so many sites because of your actions and demeanor. It is clear you are wrong and you made that more evident when you called Wade a liar. Additionally,…

One of the Goons recently characterized Rob Arnott's observation (directed at me) that "your stridency is unhelpful to your cause," as "the understatment of the year." He asked: "From how many sources have you heard some variation of this advice and have chosen to ignore it?" My response, initially set forth in the comments section of a blog entry from last week, is set forth below (my aim in posting the words as a separate blog entry is to highlight them so that they reach the attention of…

Michael Harr, founder of Walden Advisors, endorsed the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy in recent comments at the Wealth Uncomplicated blog.
Juicy Excerpt: I'd like to introduce you to a very solid approach to investing from Rob Bennett.... The principles are sound, and, over the long run, it will serve to reduce overall risk in your portfolio while providing more than adequate returns.
The comments came as preface to a Guest Blog Entry that I wrote for the blog entitled A Better…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
I’ve known that I was holding a winning hand going back to Day Six, the day that John Walter Russell posted his sensitivity analysis of the Greaney retirement study.
I never thought it would take this long. You guys got me re that one. You got me one-hundred times over re that one.
But I knew how it would end going back to the first week of our discussions. I never experienced a…

Set forth below is the text of the response that I offered at the Quora forum to the question "Why Is Rob Bennett Opposed to the Buy-and-Hold Strategy for Investing in Equities?":
Finally a question re which I can feel confident that I possess the expertise needed to rise to the task of venturing forward with a response!
The backstory here is that I was a Buy-and-Holder myself until the evening of August 27, 2002. The Buy-and-Holders did something very important that had never been done…

Set forth below is the text of an answer that I posted to the Quora site to the question "Why do so many people trust stock analysts, investment banks or big audit firms when their conflicts of interest are obvious and they're involved in fruad scandals all the time?":
Twelve reasons:
1) Even the worst of these people mix in lots of true stuff with the false stuff and people are fooled by the true stuff into thinking they are dealing straight with them;
2) The best of these people (a…

Liz Pulliam Weston has written an update to the profile of me she wrote for her MSN Money column several years back entitled Retired at 50: Where Are They Now?
Juicy Excerpt #1: The stock market crash didn't affect Rob and Mary Bennett at all. That's because Rob, who handles the family's investments, got out of stocks entirely in the mid-1990s.
Juicy Excerpt #2: Rob's investment Web site, Passionsaving.com, hasn't taken off the way he'd hoped. That's a problem, because the Bennetts had…

Set forth below are the texts of several comments that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Only a complete troll sits around trying to point out other people’s mistakes all day.
We couldn’t possibly disagree more, Anonymous.
Getting the mistakes of the Buy-and-Holders fixed is huge. There’s a lot of good stuff in the Buy-and-Hold Model. When we get the mistakes fixed, it works in the real world.
I love working to get those mistakes fixed. I only wish we could…

The author of the No Limits Ladies blog recently ran a five-part series on my book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work. She says: "Unfortunately, most people will not pick up this book based on the title alone. The S word no one likes. The people who truly value the innovative financial thinking it holds will walk on by. It is a shame because it is a great book, a great return on the cover price." She's probably already married or else would object to the…

[Introductory Note: I was wrong! After I posted this blog entry, I sent an e-mail with a link to it to Pop. He wrote back saying that "I was just lazy and taking forever to 'popize' your image." Pop intends to get the Guest Blog Entry posted at his site within the next day or two. I look forward to seeing it there and getting a chance to talk over the points made in it with interested parties. I gave a quick thought to deleting this blog entry but decided that it may be useful in letting people…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board:
He's all talk and no action. He never does anything.
I am slow to act, GW. For good or for ill. If I were asked to give one word to describe my personality, it would be "methodical." I like to be sure.
That's why I was the first one to go public about the errors in the studies. I had noticed them years before. My guess is that lots of other people noticed them. I didn't shoot my mouth off.…

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Value Walk site:
I think your comment is super, Buzz. I am grateful to you for taking the time out of your day to share your thoughts with us.
Also, I just want to note that I do not possess any particular "technical experience" in this field. My training and experience is as a journalist. I learned in the late 1990s (from reading a book by John Bogle -- "Common Sense on Mutual Funds") that Reversion to the Mean…